Abbé Georg Joseph Vogler (15/06/1749 - 06/05/1814), a German composer, theorist, organist and teacher, born in Würzburg.
The name Vogler means little to record buyers today, yet in his time he was one of those musicians who was important and to some extent influential. He was a man who shared his life between the Church - ordained as a young man hence the title Abbé - and music. A much travelled man whose perigrinations took him all over Europe and into North Africa even - he was employed by Royalty, sometimes in a dual capacity as priest and Court musician, throughout the continent. His association with Mannheim where he founded the Music School is best remembered. Among his students there were three whose names will be familiar - Weber, Meyerbeer and Danzi.
In addition to his teaching, Vogler's composing produced 10 operas, much church music and organ preludes in every key (with a full analysis). Much of the rest of his time was occupied by his efforts to simplify and improve the construction of organs - an interest that took him on his travels with various portable organs of his own design. None of his projects made him much money and he died - a poor man - in 1814.

Vogler's Requiem was highly regarded by some of his contemporaries. His pupils could not praise it highly enough - Weber referred to a "divine requiem" and it was compared by critics of the time to the Mozart Requiem. Vogler himself made a comparison that painted his own composition in a favourable light. Posterity had its say and the work disappeared. The Arte Nova release is an attempt by an enterprising smaller label to put the composition back into the repertory and it deserves to succeed.
The work dates from 1809 but contains much of its origins from 1776. It has old elements to its - shades of Handel in the underlying bass line to the Lutheran Chorale in "Te decet I" - yet generally it points forward rather than looks back. Old or new, the blend is a happy one. It follows the normal layout of the Mass with six parts and all 27 sections are banded though the Latin text is omitted.